General Command:

Any violation of Syrian airspace will be dealt as foreign aggression

Syria has warned against any violation of its airspace, emphasizing that such an encroachment will be treated as a “foreign act of aggression” and duly confronted.

News ID: 449260

Date: 24 February 2020 - 09:41

RNA - Syria’s official news agency SANA, citing a statement released by the General Command of the Army and Armed Forces, says the country's air defense units have been ordered to open fire on any foreign aircraft violating the Syrian airspace.

“Any warplane that will infiltrate the Syrian airspace will be dealt with as a hostile target. It will be hunted down and destroyed once discovered," warned the statement.

Late on February 13, Syria's air defenses intercepted an Israeli missile attack shortly after launch from over the occupied Golan Heights.

“Our air defenses confronted an Israeli attack" west of Damascus, SANA reported at the time, adding that they “were able to shoot down most of the enemy missiles before they reached their targets.”

Syrian army targets Jabhat Fateh al-Sham terrorists in Idlib

Meanwhile, Syrian government forces pounded the positions of members of the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, formerly known as al-Nusra Front, Takfiri terrorist group in a number of areas in the southern countryside of the northwestern city of Ma’arat al-Nu’man, located 33 kilometers south of Idlib.

Syrian army targets with artillery and rocket fire dens of al-Nusra terrorists in Idleb countrysidehttps://t.co/D8xryZpYWs pic.twitter.com/WkK49zU9c4

— SANAEnglishOfficial (@SANAEnOfficial) February 23, 2020

SANA reported that Syrian soldiers monitored the movement of the extremists on the outskirts of Kafr Nabl town in addition to Maarzita and Ftireh villages on Sunday.

The strikes resulted in cutting off the supply routes of the militants, and destruction of their fortified positions.

‘Turkey refuses to provide own mercenaries with refuge in Hasakah’

Separately, Turkey reportedly refused to offer its own Syrian proxies refuge in the wake of advances by Syrian government forces in the northeastern province of Hasakah.

Turkish occupation arrests scores of its mercenaries in Ras al-Ayn for refusing to fight in Idlebhttps://t.co/McSIcV4C0A

SANA reported that Turkish-backed Takfiri militants fled the strategic town of Ra's al-Ayn toward the border as Syrian army soldiers were scoring territorial gains.

Turkish border guards, however, closed the border to them, and even arrested scores of them because they had purportedly refused to fight in Idlib.

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